


Rückkehrunruhe

by Khyeili



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, FAHC, Fake AH Crew, GTA AU, Gen, Magical Realism, fem!Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-13 00:38:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4501101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khyeili/pseuds/Khyeili
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan watches the flames lick up the sides of the ruined cars, flecks of burning ash floating away, filling the sky with tiny pinpricks of light.  The two of them sit on the edge of the rooftop, feet dangling off the edge, watching the remnants of the chaos Ryan had wrought.</p><p>The man reaches into his jacket and smoothly pulls out a red flare gun, the muzzle scratched and worn from use.  He holds it out, handle-first to Ryan.  There’s a heavy look in the man’s eyes, a weight that seems ill-suited to him.</p><p>“Come home.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kenopsia

“He was something else, that guy. Never met anyone like him.” 

James nods, quietly listening as he takes a sip of his drink, legs hanging off the rusted hood of the truck parked in the field behind his house.  The man beside him pours another glass for himself, downing it like water.

“An absolute monster in a firefight. Fearless.  Hard as dicks, dude.”  The man chuckles, droopy eyes lazily panning over the golden fields before them. James absently watches the changing colors of the sunset, framed by the broken mountain floating surrounded by debris, lazily orbiting itself like a galaxy of dead stars.

“But man, he was so different when it was just us. Just the crew.” He smiles into his glass. “Soft-spoken nerd. A beast at Mario Kart and an awesome cook.  The whole package.”

James takes another sip of his whiskey, grimacing at the bite.  He breathes in the quiet, a soft breeze rustling the grain, the sound almost like the gentle crash of waves on a beach.

“Sounds like an interesting guy.”   He says, hands picking at the frayed tears of his blue jeans.

An emotion passes over the man’s face that James can’t identify.  It vanishes after a moment, replaced by a soft, apathetic smile.

“That he is.”

* * *

He runs, the golden field around him lit like fire in the setting light, the dirt soft beneath his bare feet. He can’t stop laughing, happy, giddy, _free_.  The wind blows through his hair and he’s never felt more alive, and he almost thinks that if he jumped just a little bit higher, he’d soar.

James flops down in the soft grass, the sky emblazoned with red and gold and he feels safe here, protected by the tall stalks that stretch on until nighttime.

He lies there for a while, watching the sky shift and change, colors swirling in patterns he can’t decipher. Eventually something tugs at him and he stands up, dusts off his dirty shirt, and heads back. 

He breaks into a light jog, the motion steady and automatic, and his body gradually changes.  His bones lengthen out and his baby fat melts into too tall and too thin, his tank hanging loosely off his skinny shoulders.

The house appears in the distance, screened porch and cheap white paint.  There’s a rusted car in the driveway and a tire swing in the yard.

He breaks into a run.  He needs to get back before dinner.

As he approaches, the paint begins to peel, dirt collecting in the corners of the house, rust blossoming over the car like mold on rotting food.  The tire swing collapses and the porch’s screens lose more and more of themselves to unrepaired holes.

James slows to a light jog, then to a walk. Anxiety twists in his gut the closer he gets, the more decrepit the house becomes.

The boards creak beneath his feet as he climbs the steps and sets foot on the porch.

He stands there for a long moment, hand poised to open the door, fists clenching and unclenching, tension drawing his shoulders together defensively.

He has to.

He’s _supposed_  to. 

But he can’t.

James drops his hand, letting it swing by his side idly.  He slowly, carefully turns, and leaves the house behind.

James runs.

He tries to rid himself of that house, of the porch that smelled like liquor and the car that smelled like flies, he tries to go back to the golden field and the soft grass but it’s gone, maybe it was never there to begin with and the world shifts when he turns around and he’s stood staring down a ditch, edges crumbling under his feet, and his head is filled with mindless screaming.

It’s down there, leg broken, mangled too far beyond repair, struggling, braying for help, healing, death, something, _anything_.

 _Edgar_.  His mind absently supplies.  _Farmer Abbot’s cow._  

All he can feel is its pain, its blind suffering, white-hot and sharp around the edges as it recoils in its own agony.

James steps forward and slides into the ditch, approaching the injured animal before him.  It raises its head, squealing at him in desperation.

There’s a knife in his hand.

One of his mother’s cooking knives, large and thick and _sharp_.

It still smells like apples.

He raises it and the cow stops screaming, reduced to labored panting.  He thinks that maybe it knows this is it, that it’s holding its breath, hoping he’ll end it quickly.

His mind is empty as he holds the hilt firmly in his hand, grip tightening automatically, staring with wide eyes at the animal beneath him.

James brings the knife down across the bull’s throat and it lets out a gasp, _relief_ , and blood pours forth from the wound, spurting across his hands and face, and through the fear and horrified disgust that burns hot at the forefront of his mind as the animal dies, bleeds out before him, there’s something else pulsing through his veins.

 _Exhilaration._  

The world shifts again, dirt and grass jerking away to hot pavement and flickering streetlights.  Ryan brings his knife down into the throat of some nameless lackey he doesn’t know nor care about.  His body’s thicker now, and he feels the raw power in his calloused hands as the man’s life fades from his eyes beneath him.

There’s blood on his hands and he grins, lopsided, a hair too wide and an edge too sharp.

* * *

He wanders, for a while.  The grass is cool beneath his feet and the air is warm, comfortable, like a cocoon of blankets you never want to leave. 

James pushes up the sleeves of his flannel shirt, plaid, like most of the ones he owns.  The elbows are wearing out, but he’s had enough practice with a needle and thread to keep them together without too much of a problem. 

He heads towards the city, tall skyscrapers cold and harsh against the soft golden hue of the fields beside it.

The sky is different in the city. The sky of the fields is red and gold, a perpetual sunset, but the sky in the city is dark and ominous, filled with the kind of clouds that roll in before a thunderstorm. 

James stops at the edge of the field, which abruptly ends where the pavement begins, a harsh line where even the light is different, arcing up into the heavens.

He observes the line, then moves forward.

He steps into the city, booted foot landing against hard pavement, plaid flannel replaced by dark leather, face obscured by a latex mask, dark face paint bleeding around his sharp eyes, down the column of his throat.  Ryan inhales deeply, breathing in the crisp, ashy air, savoring the way it almost burns in his lungs.

He brings up his hands, already curled around an RPG, taking aim at a line of cars parked on an intersection, flanked by skyscrapers that reach up like grasping fingers.  The dirty alleyways are covered in graffiti, names and symbols littering the brickwork, the words “FAKE” and a black and green gang symbol featuring prominently all around the city, the words layered on top of others in its harsh, shaky scrawl.

The streets and sidewalks are completely devoid of people, the city hauntingly, peacefully quiet.  Even the cars at traffic lights are empty, as if their drivers simply vanished mid-way.

Ryan exhales.

He fires.

The grenade fires from the gun in slow-motion, its rippling impact shuddering down his body in a wave that shakes him to his boots. The sound is muffled, as if underwater, as it flies through the air, rocket shooting a line of flame as a light smoke trails behind it in swirling spirals.

It collides with the rear window of a dull green van, the resulting explosion tossing several surrounding cars into the air, floating and spinning as if their tether to the earth had been cut. Their spins and mid-air turns slow with each rotation, bright flames billowing out from under the cars like fabric. Shattered glass catches the light, sending intermittent sparks of light up into the sky like stars. 

Ryan pauses, feeling a… _presence_  in the comforting emptiness of the city.  He looks up, locking eyes with a figure on a nearby rooftop.

A man looks back, brown leather jacket and curly auburn hair.  He’s watching him, gaze intense.  He doesn’t feel threatened, nor alarmed.

Ryan slowly, _lovingly_ reloads the rocket launcher, eyes still locked with the man on the rooftop.  He lightly fingers the trigger, then fires again, this time into the line of cars on the opposite side of the street.

The man watches, his mouth twisting into a satisfied smile, the explosion lighting up his face like fireworks.

* * *

Ryan watches the flames lick up the sides of the ruined cars, flecks of burning ash floating away, filling the sky with tiny pinpricks of light.  The two of them sit on the edge of the rooftop, feet dangling off the edge, watching the remnants of the chaos Ryan had wrought. 

The man reaches into his jacket and smoothly pulls out a red flare gun, the muzzle scratched and worn from use. He holds it out, handle-first to Ryan. There’s a heavy look in the man’s eyes, a weight that seems ill-suited to him.

“Come home.”

Ryan takes the gun, testing the weight in his hand, but when he turns back to the man, he’s gone.

When he fires the flare, he loves the way it burns fast, hot, and bright, but he can’t help but feel a certain hollowness in the way the lone flare stands out against the empty sky. 

* * *

Finger on the trigger, breathing in the familiar scent of worn latex, ready, waiting for the signal, body coiled tight, ready, _ready_.

It’s routine at this point, but the excitement, the _anticipation_  still swells in his gut, a thick, jittery warmth that has him grinning beneath his mask.  He _lives_  for this.

The signal goes off and he’s already moving, rushing through the bank doors with several others, all dressed in dark, unremarkable clothes holding assault rifles and the plan’s running through his head rapidfire, the steps seared into his memory like a well-worn path, a dance he knows every step, every _beat_  to.

A gun is fired and the small crowd erupts into screams, many of them dropping to the floor in fright.  Orders are shouted and the rest move to kneel, hands behind their heads.  A few pairs of eyes look up in small bursts of defiance while the rest keep them trained to the ground.

A few of the others point their guns at the people on the ground, hard stances and imposing figures daring them to try something. Ryan relaxes his grip on his rifle, moving to approach the tellers.

They’re cowering, hands up, eyes darting around nervously, as if trying to calculate their chances of making it home today alive if they comply or if they go for the panic buttons beneath the counter.

As Ryan steps forward, the sights and sounds around him begin to dull, fading into a muted haze, unimportant, unnecessary. His ears are buzzing. 

Something’s different.  Something’s _wrong._

His boots squeal slightly on the tiled floor, echoing hollowly in the silent bank.  He locks eyes with the teller before him.  She’s still seated, calmly watching Ryan as he draws nearer, face stony, expressionless.

Ryan’s blood goes cold.

His steps slow, hands empty as he reaches the counter. The other tellers’ faces have blurred into static, simple white noise.  The colors around her, however, are different somehow, filled with weight and memory and pain and despair.

“Such a disappointment.”  She says, her eyes blank and icy, words falling from her lips like venom, stinging like old scars beneath his skin.

His throat goes dry.

James’ hands shake, fear catching in his throat, choking, _strangling_  his words until he’s nothing but gasping breaths and a racing heart.  His thin arms cross across his chest instinctually, defensively, body slowly but surely closing in on itself.

“What a waste.”

He whips around to see a man standing to the side, a few feet away.

“So disrespectful.” He says, the soft, pale skin of his throat contrasting sharply with the heavy judgement of the clerical collar around his neck.  His words are calm, even, but he doesn’t miss the heavy disgust lacing his tone.

James’ eyes sting, he can’t speak, can’t _think_ , shame burning heavily in his chest as tears begin to slide down his face.

“He never listened to us.”  His mother says, almost wistfully.

His father nods once, mouth set in a grim line.

“It was to be expected,” he says, eyes locked with James, unblinking, unfeeling.  “That he ended up a criminal and a _faggot_.”

The words are an execution, the snap of a noose, the fall of the guillotine’s blade.  The floor beneath him crumbles, burning, falling away to ash and nothing but the void, the crushing emptiness of abandonment and his own thoughts clogging his throat. 

The world snaps back all at once, the bank, the tiled floor, the counter, the glass.

They’re still staring at him, calm, silent, _expectant_.

He’s wearing a leather jacket. There’s a pistol in his hands.

James raises the gun.

Ryan fires.

Once.

She falls back as the bullet destroys the back of her skull, splattering blood across the wall behind her.  She hits the ground with a dull thud, body limp on the floor as blood begins to pool beneath her.

Twice.

His neck snaps back, eyes blank as he remains standing for a moment before tipping backwards and collapsing onto the floor in a heap, blood running down his broken face.

Ryan inhales.

Then exhales.

The gun burns in his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Kenopsia: the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet—a school hallway in the evening, an unlit office on a weekend, vacant fairgrounds—an emotional afterimage that makes it seem not just empty but hyper-empty, with a total population in the negative, who are so conspicuously absent they glow like neon signs._


	2. Monachopsis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hello Ryan.”
> 
> He looks up from his knife. There’s a redheaded woman staring back at him. She’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. Her face is stern, yet soft around the edges.
> 
> He nods to her, and she sits in the chair across from him. Ryan returns to his knife, cleaning between the serrated edges on the dull side.
> 
> “Do you know who I am, Ryan?”

 Ryan wanders for a long time.

He follows the fissures in the earth below the volcano in the sky, watching the lava drip down onto the fields, setting small fires before inexplicably going out, small curls of smoke drifting through the air in black-grey swirls.

The bright, fiery embers that carry on the wind are comforting, familiar.  He follows their movements through the air, flickering bright before going out.

A single rose petal floats by, twirling on the slight summer breeze.  Somehow it seems out of place, the color too bright, too clean for the dusty, cracked earth.

It’s joined by several others, all spinning and turning on a melody that he cannot hear, a dance both improvised and choreographed.

Ryan follows the windborne petals, one step in front of the other, quietly watching the petals as they whisper by, gifting secrets spoken in tongues he cannot understand.

He approaches a city, one that he does not recognize. The buildings are long-abandoned, detached from the earth, their framework suspended in the silent air as rubble and broken glass floats in scattered patterns around them. The floating structures move slightly, some drifting further upwards, some slowly coming down.

Graffiti litters the crumbling buildings, some gang symbols and some illegible names, though most are the words “FAKE” in thick, scratchy font, layered on top of each other beside circular symbol emblazoned with black and green.  It’s on every building, the brickwork covered in the scrawled letters and the gang symbol, repeated so many times that the words themselves are almost illegible.

The wayward petals give way to full-blown flowers, red roses lying in the street, fresh and bright in the dirty greys of the city. Ryan follows the shaky line of flowers winding through the main road to the floating ruins of a broken skyscraper.

Rusted steel beams hover in staggered lines like stairs, leading upwards towards a chunk of mangled debris. There’s a man standing there, facing away from Ryan, watching the sky.  Bright, swirling galaxies fill the horizon, bits and pieces of them glitching in and out of existence, their movement halting, catching, as if run by gears that didn’t quite fit together right.

Ryan ascends the beams, one by one. They dip slightly under his weight, but remain steady in their place.

He reaches the top, and is met with a small garden of beautiful red roses.  There are no vines, no thorns, only the flowers, their outer petals slowly peeling off and fluttering away in the breeze.

The man pulls a hand out of his purple hoodie and picks one of the roses.  He gently holds it up to his face, inhaling its fragrance with a contented hum. Ryan watches the motion intently as a wistful, faraway expression passes over the man’s face.

“You could paint the town red.” The words fall from his lips before he even realizes he’s speaking, as if, perhaps, they were always meant to be said.

The man exhales gently, then lets the rose catch the wind and drift away, petals peeling off piece by piece.

“I already have.”

* * *

 

The body pressed against his back is slight, thin, shaking badly, and it almost feels like it isn’t truly there, like a gust of wind or a wayward movement would shatter the illusion and it would disappear. 

Ryan stills his hands, idly cleaning the barrel of his pistol with an oiled rag, and lowers them to his lap, turning to look over his shoulder.

The boy – man? – behind him presses his forehead into the space between Ryan’s shoulderblades, arms wrapped around his middle, hands clutching almost desperately at his leather jacket.

He’s crying, shuddering, gasping for air, burrowing his face into Ryan’s jacket as he wails.  “Ryan, Ryan, Ryan,” the man sobs, and he’s suddenly overwhelmed by how unstable the man feels against him.  There’s something… _off_  about his presence.

Like he’s not supposed to be here, somehow.

Like a card from a different deck, an extra frame spliced into a movie, something similar but inherently separate, not quite right.

The man is shaking hard, hands twisting in the fabric of his jacket, sniffling as his lanky body ghosts in and out of existence, flickering and fading before snapping back into focus.

“R-Ryan,” the man cries once more, lips struggling around the words.  “Please Ryan. C’mon, please c-come home.”

Like a splash of icewater, like a punch to the gut he’s suddenly overcome with grief, sadness, loneliness, there’s a hole in his chest that he doesn’t know how to fill, panic, _panic_ , he has to get out, **get out**

The pressure at his back lifts and Ryan spins around.

The man is gone.

Ryan looks around, scanning the empty street. A streetlight flickers. The wind kicks up some dust.

He shrugs, then turns back to his gun, smoothing the rag down the edge of the barrel, carefully, lovingly. He thumbs the symbol on the handle as he wipes down the muzzle.

Tears run down his cheeks, but he can’t remember why.

* * *

“Hello Ryan.” 

He looks up from his knife.  There’s a redheaded woman staring back at him. She’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts.  Her face is stern, yet soft around the edges.

He nods to her, and she sits in the chair across from him.  Ryan returns to his knife, cleaning between the serrated edges on the dull side.

“Do you know who I am, Ryan?”

He looks up again, rubbing circles into the blade. He studies her face, lips pursed beneath his mask.  “Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.”

She nods, eyes not leaving his face. Her expression remains unchanged.

“Ryan, I’m going to try to help you, okay? Right now, you may not remember some things about what’s happened to you, so I’m going to fill you in. Is that alright?”

Ryan frowns.  He doesn’t really understand, but it’s not like she’s asking much of him. He continues cleaning his knife. It’s an old one, and he hasn’t been able to keep it as silver as he would like.  Dried blood has built up around the handle.

The woman takes a quiet breath.

“My name is Jack.  You’re a member of the Fake AH Crew with me, based in Los Santos.” Her hands are clenched. “We were in a firefight in Vagos territory, an opposing gang.  You were hit by a blast from an experimental weapon, and your mind was separated from your body.”

The woman – Jack – watches Ryan closely, watches the way his eyes flicker through the eye holes of his skull mask.

“Your mind was sent to what’s called a ‘blank space’; an empty realm populated by your thoughts and memories. Without other people, or any frame of reference, it’s easy to get lost and be unable to find your way out.”

Ryan looks up from his knife, staring back at her. It didn’t make much sense. Jack reaches across the table, splaying her fingers gently across Ryan’s closed fist.  “Ryan, where are we right now?”

“Los Santos.” He replies automatically. He hadn’t really thought about it before.

“Ryan.”  She says slowly, gently.  “I want you to look around.  How did we get here?”

Ryan looks up.  They’re at a table on top of a low building, overlooking a few dingy alleyways.  There’s trash on the rooftop, cigarette butts and empty beer cans collecting in the corners.

“We would’ve had to climb a ladder or a fire escape,” she continues.  Her voice is smooth and low, firm yet soft.  “Ryan, do you remember how we got up here?”

Ryan thinks.  How _did_  he get up here?  He’d been raiding some gang’s hideout and his knife had gotten a little too dirty for his tastes.

Where had that raid been?  Somewhere downtown, he thinks.

That would’ve been a half-hour’s walk, but he can’t remember any of the sidewalks or subways that would’ve led him here, nor the stairs to the rooftop.

He can’t even remember when he’d started talking to Jack.

Ryan’s breathing speeds up, heart pounding as he struggles to think through the omnipresent _fog_  in his head, it’s like nothing will stick, nothing will _stay_.

Jack’s hand feels as clear as crystal in his mind as she clasps his hand with hers.

“You are a member of the Fake AH Crew, and you work for Geoff Ramsey in Los Santos.  Your body is currently in a coma-like state while your mind exists in this ‘blank world’.  We tried to reconnect your mind and body on our own, but the physical whereabouts of your mind are unknown to us.  We can create mental projections through your body to contact your mind, but it’s far too risky for us to stay long enough to bridge the connection ourselves.” Her expression softens.  “You have to be the one to do it.  Ryan, you need to wake up. You need to remember.”

Jack keeps her voice even, the tone of her words calm and eerily scripted and suddenly Ryan realizes that _this isn’t the first time she’s said this_.

Ryan can’t breathe, his hands are shaking, still clutched around his knife, vision blurring as a wave of vertigo shudders through him. His throat is dry and he can’t speak, can’t _think_.

Images, _memories_  flit through his mind like frames out of a movie, shaky and unfocused, fading quickly as he struggles to hold onto them, falling through his fingers like sand.

Jack continues, running her thumb across Ryan’s knuckles.  “Do you remember Michael? You had just bought a minigun to match his, and you wanted to test them out on a gang that’s been encroaching on the west side of our territory.”

A blurry memory surfaces, the two of them hefting their massive guns onto the center table, laughing giddily about the firing rate, its sheer destructive _power_ , the potential for exploding rounds. Ryan clings to the memory, digging through it until everything’s rushing back, Geoff, Jack, _everyone_  and oh god _how could he have forgotten?!_

Jack leans forward in her chair. “Ryan, breathe. You’re okay.  Focus, you’ll be-“ she cuts herself off suddenly, freezing, muscles tensing.

Her head snaps upwards, eyes locking on something in the sky.

Ryan follows her gaze.  It’s a fighter jet, a kind that Ryan doesn’t recognize, leaving a silent trail of white smoke behind it as it soars across the red-orange sky.

Jack goes pale.

“I have to go, Ryan.  I’m sorry, please, keep fighting, remember that this world is fake.”  Her voice is firm and strong, but just beneath the surface is panic, blind, white-hot.

“No, no, don’t leave me, please, Jack!” Ryan shouts, shooting out of his seat to grab at Jack, but she’s already gone, her fading memory the only thing left, already escaping his grasp like wisps of smoke.

He can’t forget, he _can’t_ , not again, he has no idea how many times he’s remembered and how many times he’s forgotten but he knows that he’s still here and that means he hasn’t succeeded yet and _god_  he can barely recall what she looked like and the harder he focuses the more the other details start to slip, his impression of the crew crumbling like dust on the wind and he has to do _something_ , he can’t, he can’t forget them again.

His eyes focus on the graffiti on the alley walls, the words “FAKE” scrawled in messy lettering across the cracked brickwork and with a deafening clarity realizes that _he wrote those words_ , messy panicked attempts at reminders to keep him from forgetting again that only faded to background noise to be ignored.

His hands are shaking, jerking around the worn handle and he already knows what to do as he plunges the knife into his arm, bringing it down in a sharp line near his elbow.  Ryan pulls the blade out, then repeats two more lines against the first, tearing a bloody “F” into his forearm.

Ryan stares, wide-eyed and intense at the graffiti, focusing everything he has into the word “FAKE” as he carves the letters into his arm.  It’s very quickly getting slick and sticky, the blood running out of the wounds in thick rivulets, dripping down onto the dirty cement.  He can’t forget again, he _can’t_ , the woman’s visit is already a vague impression in his mind, like a dream he can’t recall having but somehow knowing it was once there.

By the time he reaches the “E” he doesn’t know why he’s carving the letters into his forearm, but he’s breathing fast and he’s panicking, gasping for breath as his hand tightens around the handle of the blade and Ryan figures that whatever the reason was, it must have been important.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place, as maladapted to your surroundings as a seal on a beach—lumbering, clumsy, easily distracted, huddled in the company of other misfits, unable to recognize the ambient roar of your intended habitat, in which you’d be fluidly, brilliantly, effortlessly at home._


	3. Rückkehrunruhe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My name is James Ryan Haywood,” he says, clutching the barely-scabbed scar on his forearm, grounding him, keeping him from forgetting the words as they appear on his lips. “I am the Mad Mercenary. I am a member of the Fake AH Crew. And this world is fake.”

Ryan keeps spray paint in a bag slung across his chest these days.

The thick, puckered scars across his forearm remind him that something isn’t quite right, that he needs to think past the haze, the fog that keeps everything safe, everything _normal_.

He re-carves the scar as much as he can, every time he thinks to do so.  The blood keeps him aware, the severity of such a self-inflicted wound keeping him on his toes, _lucid_.

It takes him four tries to keep the thought with him long enough, but he manages to replace his weapons with fake ones as triggers, as _reminders_.  He swaps his RPG with a fireworks launcher, his pistols with flare guns (he keeps the red one tucked in the back of his jeans, it’s comforting, somehow), his rifles with muskets. After a few times of firing fireworks into an enemy gang’s base, he carves “FAKE” into the handles of the guns. 

Every time he looks down at his arm and sees the bloodied scars on his arm he digs, he fights, he tries everything he has to understand what it means, why it’s there.  Sometimes, things spring to his mind; little tidbits of conversation, colors, impressions, faces, smiles, and he sprays them into the walls, it doesn’t matter how mundane or boring, he can’t forget, even if he can’t remember _what_  he can’t forget he just knows he _can’t_.

The alleyways are soon filled with miniguns and flares, red-brown hair and big noses, moustaches and roses, tacky shirts and latex masks.  Sometimes he can only spray one line of color before the image bleeds away from memory, sometimes he has long enough to make delicate details with his fingers, dipping them in the wet paint and smearing them in curved lines and accents.

He begins to gain control.

The thoughts and memories still fade quickly, slipping between his fingers, but they leave deeper impressions. He knows he’s forgotten them, and he knows he can find them again.

* * *

Ryan’s sitting out in the fields with Gavin, watching the sunset framed by the floating, crumbling earth, when it happens.

The words die in his throat as finally, _finally_ , the fog clears and everything clicks into place.

Gavin’s looking at him, eyes wide, perfectly still, as if one wayward movement would shatter everything under the weight of the moment.

“My name is James Ryan Haywood,” he says, clutching the barely-scabbed scar on his forearm, grounding him, keeping him from forgetting the words as they appear on his lips.  “I am the Mad Mercenary.  I am a member of the Fake AH Crew.  And this world is fake.”

The volcano in the sky erupts in a fiery explosion of lava and debris as the very fabric of the sky splits with a thunderous _crack_ , then shatters, golden fields burning, buildings breaking apart, chunks of rubble crumbling into nothingness.

Gavin’s laughing, crying as he leaps into Ryan’s arms, burying his face into his neck as the world burns around them. 

Ryan spins them, grinning as glowing embers and black smoke fill the air, swirling up into the broken sky.  Pieces of the shattered atmosphere rain down on them, glinting in the fiery light as they gently dissolve. 

Through the smoke and chaos, the lava and flame, he sees something.

A single,

crimson

rose.

Time seems to jerk to a stop and he suddenly, violently, _remembers._

“Ray,” he gasps.  Gavin pulls back and looks at him, confusion clouding his eyes. Ryan clutches Gavin’s arms, grip tight, desperate.   “ _Ray._  Ray’s in here. Ray’s in here with me.”

Gavin’s face crumbles in the worst way and Ryan’s heart breaks.  “Ryan, Ray’s dead. He got caught in an explosion – he…he ended up a bloody smear on the smegging sidewalk, Rye, he’s dead!”

Ryan shakes his head.  “He’s here, Gav.  He’s here, I have to get him out!”

“He’s just a bloody projection, someone your mind used to populate this place!  Rye, we _need_  to get out, everything’s falling apart, you have to wake up or you’ll be trapped here and I can’t lose you again, I just _c-can’t_!”

“I’m sorry, Gav,” Ryan says quietly, holding Gavin’s arms loosely.  “But I have to find Ray.”

He pulls Gavin into a tight embrace. “Come back,” Gavin whispers, and then he’s gone.

Ryan runs.

Sprinting, breathing hard, boots hitting the ground hard and fast, mind focused on a singular point.

_Ray._

He can feel the weight of the blank world now, has grown more aware of the depth and viscosity of the fabric of the reality around him, and he digs deeper into the depths of this reality to find him.

He finds himself at the edge of a forest of thorned vines, thick and tangled and twisted over and around each other, the overgrowth almost too thick to maneuver. 

Ryan pulls himself through a gap between the vines, thorns catching on his jacket, snagging on his skin.

Inside the forest, the chaos and destruction outside is muffled, a distant, faraway memory.  His hands are slick and sticky by the time the vines open up enough for him to pull himself into a low crouch, stepping over the thick undergrowth as he ducks to avoid the vines that curl over him.

A vine snaps beside him and he whirls around, finding himself face to face with a young boy.

His clothes are too big on his wiry body, too thin, too small. His eyes are wide, vacant, brimming with unshed tears, trained steadily on the ground.  There are purpling bruises around his shoulders, creeping up his neck, small cuts and scratches littering his bony legs. 

Ryan watches him, careful not to make a sound, but the boy doesn’t seem to notice him.  He hears something in the silence, body tensing, twitching, collapsing in on itself in fear, and he bolts, disappearing into an echo of a garbled scream.

Ryan hesitates, waiting for the boy to return, but there’s only the sound of the burning world behind him.  He shoulders on, breath quickening, heart pounding, there’s no time, _no time_.

A gunshot explodes the air around him and he drops, throwing his arms up around his head.

The sound of shouted orders through radio static fills the silence of the forest, echoing in circles around the twisted vines.

He’s on a rooftop, standing beside Ray, hair too short and beard too thin but still _Ray_ , face too thin from life on the streets, jacket still too big for skin and bones.

Ray’s firing shot after shot, sniper rifle recoiling into his shoulder before he reloads with a deadly efficiency, like a killer, like a _machine_.

Ryan watches as the cops go down, one by one, the smirk that just barely graces Ray’s lips.

He watches as it all goes to shit.

His crew, Ray’s crew, goes down like flies, SWAT teams rushing the alleys they flee to until, one by one, they end up in a puddle of their own blood and Ray’s screaming, crying as he fires round after round but _it’s not enough_ , it’s _never enough_  and they’re climbing the fire escapes to his rooftop and he needs to get out but his hands won’t move fast enough and he’s running, jumping, _falling_ ,

Ryan forcibly pushes himself out, fighting to stay focused.  He could spend lifetimes drifting through the projections, the dreams, the _memories_  that inhabit the forest, but the world is breaking beneath his feet and he _needs_  to find Ray.

He’s running now, breaking through thorns and vines through sheer force, panicked and afraid because there’s _no time left_  but he _can’t leave him trapped here_.

With a sudden _crack_ , he bursts through a wall of vines, landing in a crumpled heap on the dusty earth.

The air is as still and silent as the grave, laced with depth, weight, _importance_. 

He’s in a clearing, a wide circle, soft golden light filtering down through the canopy of vines above, its light warm and understanding.

In the center of the clearing is a twisted mass of thorned vines, almost completely wrapped around a small figure at its center. 

 _Ray_. 

He’s on his back, only his torso and head visible, face tilted up towards the canopy, eyes closed.  He looks so fragile, surrounded by thorns and twisted undergrowth, the soft light giving him a pale, otherworldly glow.

Ryan approaches the altar of vines, pressing his hands to either side of Ray’s face.  He has to get him to wake up, the flames are too close, licking at the edge of the clearing, the heat soon will break through into this little safe space and he doesn’t know if he can get out in time and he’s fucking _terrified_  but he needs to get _Ray._

“Ray?” he shakes him gently, afraid that he’ll break beneath his fingers.  “Ray? Can you hear me? I need to get you out of here.”

He remains motionless, skin almost translucent in the hazy light.

Ryan bites his lip, breath heavy in his chest. There’s no _time_.

“Wake up, Ray.  C’mon, R and R Connection, remember?  Can’t leave without you.  C’mon Ray.”

The world is shattering, great fissures splitting reality apart around them, everything’s burning, going up in smoke in great black plumes.  The vines wrapped around Ray’s weak form relax and fall to the ground in a limp heap, dissolving into golden dust.

Tears sting at Ryan’s eyes, grief and desperation catching in his throat.  He presses his forehead against Ray’s, tears running down his cheeks.

“Wake up, Ray.  Please.  Wake up.”

And then, like a prayer answered with rain, like a breath of light in the darkest depths of despair, like redemption, like absolution,

He does.

Ray’s eyes open and the world falls apart around them, blossoming out into golden dust and flames, surrounding them in an endless dance in swirling patterns that stretch out until forever.

It feels like lifetimes pass around them as they surround themselves with one other, edges blurring, inhaling memories and exhaling eons to the lilting melody of the endless golden fires.

Finally, with a sudden gust of wind, the flames go out and the last tendrils of the blank world slip away, their hold on them lost, and there is nothing but the two of them.

“Ryan.”  Ray breathes, eyes wide with a clarity he himself seemed to have forgotten. His eyes well up with tears of relief, drops of glass against the void.

Ryan cards his fingers through Ray’s hair, still soft, still real.

Ray reaches up and runs his hands down the sides of Ryan’s neck, pressing their foreheads together.

He smiles. 

“Thank you.”

“Please don’t go,” Ryan whispers, voice cracking softly.  “Please.”

 

Ray squeezes his hands gently.

 

Then, as inevitable as the tides carrying the lost out to sea,

 

As ever-certain as meteors yielding to the overwhelming pull of gravity,

 

Ray lets go.

 

* * *

 

Ryan’s eyes snap open in a rush of blinding static and he screams, thrashing wildly, hope and desperation and love and loss all clawing at his throat and he can’t breathe, he _can’t breathe_

He’s lying in a bed, generic sheets, _a safehouse_  and he can feel the crew’s eyes on him, their initial excitement draining away with the tears now running freely down his cheeks.

Their silence is deafening as he breaks down, breath hitching as he curls in on himself.

He’s awake now, _awake_  and everything’s fading away, the richness of the skies to the warmth of the dust, the floating skyscrapers to the golden fields beneath a volcanic moon.

 _Ray_ , he thinks to himself.

“Ray,” he breathes, throat dry from disuse, catching on his words as he finds himself picking at the scabbing scars on his arm that are no longer there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Rückkehrunruhe: the feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness—to the extent you have to keep reminding yourself that it happened at all, even though it felt so vivid just days ago—which makes you wish you could smoothly cross-dissolve back into everyday life, or just hold the shutter open indefinitely and let one scene become superimposed on the next, so all your days would run together and you’d never have to call cut._  
>  \--
> 
> And finally, Rückkehrunruhe is finished! I'm gonna to fill you guys in on some stuff about the story that I thought y'all might be interested in (aka cool things I want to share)
> 
> -The words and definitions come from dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com, created by John Koenig (you may recognize his term, Sonder -the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own)
> 
> -This story falls within the urban fantasy and magic realism genres. Essentially, the setting is modern day with some added magical/supernatural elements. So the enemy gang's experimental weapon was created using a mix of sorcery and regular weaponry.
> 
> -The events Ryan experiences within the Blank World are a mix of complete memories and different places/experiences spliced together. While some elements of the world are straight from memory (the streets of Los Santos), other parts are more metaphorical, based on emotions or his state of mind.
> 
> -James grew up in a strict, religious household in a rural part of the South. He was terrified of his parents, and did everything he could to be the perfect child for them. The Edgar incident kind of fucked him up and led him to rebel against his parents, run away, get involved in some shady shit, etc. He changed his name to Ryan when he left for good.
> 
> -The part where Ryan shoots his parents is not a memory. He created the projections of his parents within the memory of the bank robbery, and his actions were his own once they appeared.
> 
> -The crew uses a telepathic connection in order to enter the Blank World and speak to Ryan. Jack is the most skilled Esper in the group aside from Gavin, who's actually an incredibly powerful psychic. However, he has poor emotional control when making a connection, which caused his appearance to come through weak and his emotions to imprint on Ryan.
> 
> -The fighter jet was from one of Jack's own memories as a pilot in the air force. It was a sign that her mind was beginning to populate her own part of the Blank World, and that she could soon become trapped there like Ryan. It's one of the risks of using a psychic connection to contact him.
> 
> -While in the Blank World, you can somewhat remember what you've been doing, but it tends to fade over time. Events that include people from outside your own populated space are much more difficult to remember.
> 
> -I just really like the idea of Ryan firing his musket/fireworks/flares without realizing it and staring for like 30 seconds at it like ???? until he remembers
> 
> -Gavin visits Ryan the most out of the crew. Geoff visits the least (he feels responsible for Ray's death & Ryan's condition)
> 
> -It's never explicitly stated, but in this AU, the crew's in a six-way relationship. They're all incredibly close, though some more than others. When Ray was lost to them, they had been officially together for only a few months, though Ryan and Ray and Michael and Ray had been together for longer.
> 
> -Ray was in the Blank World for a whole lot longer than Ryan was. Ray's city is almost entirely covered in graffiti, desperate attempts to keep himself aware. For both Ray and Ryan, they entered the Blank World knowing that they weren't in the real world, but as time went on, the deeper they sunk, they began to forget, and reality slipped away.
> 
> -The Blank World has a kind of physical depth and weight to it. The outer rings are the thinnest, where you're most aware that you're not experiencing reality. The deeper you go, the thicker the world becomes, and the harder it is to not lose yourself. The very core of the Blank World is like a black hole; it pulls you into its depths and once there, it's incredibly difficult to escape.
> 
> -Had Ryan not awoken Ray, Ryan's portion of the Blank World would've crumbled away, leaving Ray trapped, personality chipping away until he was nothing but dead memories on endless loops in the forest. Maybe Ryan would've found himself trapped too, his fading world the only way out.
> 
> EDIT-While Ryan still has a body for his mind to return to, Ray does not. It was destroyed in a firefight, and so Ryan freeing him from the Blank World allowed him to properly die.
> 
> And I think that's all I wanted to add?? If you have any questions about the story/this world, leave a comment or send me a message! (im khyeili on tumblr) Thanks for reading!


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